for the reasons stated, are not in sympathy with the structural form and political objectives of the League, are not lacking in sympathy for its admirable administrative work in co-ordinating the activities of civilized nations for the common good. In any study of a World Constitution, the example of those who framed the American Constitution can be studied with profit.

JAMES M. BECK.

Chamonix,

July 14, 1922.

Contents

PREFACE BY THE EARL OF BALFOUR

INTRODUCTION BY SIR JOHN SIMON

AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION

FIRST LECTURE: THE GENESIS OF THE CONSTITUTION

SECOND LECTURE: THE FORMULATION OF THE CONSTITUTION

THIRD LECTURE: THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONSTITUTION

THE REVOLT AGAINST AUTHORITY

I. The Genesis of the Constitution of the United States

I trust I need not offer this audience, gathered in the noble hall of this historic Inn—of "old Purpulei, Britain's ornament"—any apology for challenging its attention in this and two succeeding addresses to the genesis, formulation, and the fundamental political philosophy of the Constitution of the United States. The occasion gives me peculiar satisfaction, not only in the opportunity to thank my fellow Benchers of the Inn for their graciousness in granting the use of this noble Hall for this purpose, but also because the delivery of these addresses now enables me to be, for the moment, in fact as in honorary title a Bencher, or Reader, of this time-honoured society.

If I needed any justification for addresses, which I was graciously invited to deliver under the auspices of the University of London, an honour which I also gratefully acknowledge, it would lie in the fact that we are to consider one of the supremely great achievements of the English-speaking race. It is in that aspect that I shall treat my theme; for, as a philosophical or juristic discussion of the American Constitution, my addresses will be neither as "deep as a well, nor as wide as a church door."

My auditors will bear in mind that I must limit each address to the duration of an hour, and that I cannot go deeply or exhaustively into a subject that has challenged the admiring comment and profound consideration of the intellectual world for nearly a century and a half.

If England and America are to act together in the coming time—and the destinies of the world are, to a very large extent, in their keeping, then they must know each other better, and, to this end, they must take a greater interest in each other's history and political institutions. My principal purpose in these lectures is to deepen the interest of this great nation in one of the very greatest and far-reaching achievements of our common race.

Americans have never lacked interest in English history; for however broad the stream of our national life, how could we ignore its chief source?

But is there in England an equal interest in the history of America, whose origin and development constitute one of the most dramatic and significant dramas ever played upon the stage of this "wide and universal theatre of man"? It is true that Thackeray, in his Virginians, gave us in fiction the finest picture of our colonial life, and the late and deeply lamented Lord Bryce wrote one of the best commentaries upon our institutions in The American Commonwealth. In more recent years two of the most moving portraits of our Hamilton and Lincoln are due to your Mr. Oliver and Lord Charnwood. We gratefully recognize this; and yet, how many educated Englishmen have studied that little known chapter of our history, which gave to the progress of mankind a contribution to political science which your Gladstone praised as the greatest "ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man"? If "peace hath her victories no less renown'd than war," this achievement may well justify your study and awaken your admiration; for, as I have already said and cannot too strongly emphasize, it was the work of the English-speaking race, of men who, shortly before they entered upon this great work of constructive statecraft, were citizens of your Empire. The conditions of colonial development had profoundly stimulated in these English pioneers the sense and genius for constitutionalism.

In his speech on Conciliation with America of March 22, 1775, Edmund Burke showed his characteristically philosophic comprehension of this powerful constitutional conscience of the then American subjects of the Empire. After stating that in no other country in the world was law so generally studied, and referring to the fact that as many copies of Blackstone's Commentaries had been sold in America as in England, he added:

"This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of resources. In other countries the people, more simple and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle."

Moreover, these hardy pioneers were the privileged heirs of the great political traditions of England. While the Constitution of the United States was very much more than an adaptation of the British Constitution, yet its underlying spirit was that of the English speaking race and the Common Law. Behind the framers of the Constitution, as they entered upon their momentous task, were the mighty shades of Simon de Montfort, Coke, Sandys, Bacon, Eliot, Hampden, Lilburne, Milton, Shaftesbury and Locke. Could there be a better illustration of Sir Frederick Pollock's noble tribute to the genius of the common law:

"Remember that Our Lady, the Common Law, is not a task-mistress, but a bountiful sovereign, whose service is freedom. The destinies of the English-speaking world are bound up with her fortunes and migrations and its conquests are justified by her works"?

Another reason makes the consideration of the subject not only interesting but opportune. "These are the times that try men's souls." It is a time of sifting, when men of all nations in civilization in these critical days are again testing the value even of those political institutions which have the sanction of the past. Society is in a state of flux. Everywhere the foundations of governmental structures seem to be settling—let us hope and pray upon a surer foundation—and when the seismic convulsion of the world war is taken into account, it is not surprising that this is so. While the storm is not yet past and the waves have not wholly subsided, it is natural that everywhere thoughtful men as true mariners are taking their reckonings to know where they are and whether the frail bark of human institutions is still sufficiently seaworthy to keep afloat.

Moreover, the patent evidences of weakness in the international organization that we call civilization, the imperative need of ending the spirit of moral anarchy, and the urgent necessity of rebuilding the shattered ruins of the social edifice on surer foundations by the integration of the nations, if possible, into some new form of world organization, gives peculiar interest in these terrible days to the manner in which the American people solved a similar problem more than a century ago.

Then, as now, a world war had ended. Then, as now, half the world was prostrated by the wounds of fratricidal strife. As Washington said: "The whole world was in